civilians are bearing the brunt continues to pound gaza with a ground invasion in the works despite international efforts to mediate peace. tel aviv claims it's not targeting civilians and collateral damage is minimal. the rebranded syrian opposition gets a royal welcome in france as the e.u. is expected to decide whether to openly send weapons to the rebels. and the u.k. government's budget huddling is under fire for its revealed that billions of pounds spent on bank bailouts may all go down the drain.

just after five pm moscow time this is our to you with me rule received israel is intensifying its barracks of gaza on the fourth day of hostilities and stepping up preparations for a possible ground invasion by militants are firing back with an unguided rockets that mostly fall off target while it's ready precision strikes are leading to a rising number of civilian deaths from the region with the latest. the israeli defense forces has sealed off roads around gaza declaring the area a closed military zone this is just another suggestion that a ground offensive could be imminent also israeli officials have been meeting with foreign diplomats and telling them that they plan to extend the army operations this comes off to some seventy five thousand reservists were called out and we all witnessing an increase in activity along the israeli gaza border now there continues to be heavy shelling from tanks along this border into gaza the tanks as

well as all the personnel real calls have been moved through off this border over the past few days we are also hearing from the chief of the israeli defense forces for an increase in the pace of a strikes on gaza this comes just after a massive air strikes on saturday completely destroyed the headquarters of the hamas government now this is a building where just yesterday the egyptian foreign minister visited it is a building that has now been reduced to rubble at the time of the prime minister's visit they was supposed to be a cease fire in effect and according to the israelis they did not break this but we have heard from hamas that two people were killed during this time must has issued a statement in which it says it will stand alongside its people we're talking about a government that was democratically elected back in two thousand and six and if you remember at the time the world hailed the election as a sign of the more could see in the gaza strip so we're not talking about his

radiator strikes that are targeting rebel groups but rather strikes that are targeting the just who met him rick to the voice of the people of gaza at the same time according to israeli statistics some four hundred and fifty rockets have been fired into southern israel since wednesday and there was a barrage of earlier today as well but no reports of deaths and light injuries it's worth mentioning that most of these missiles all homemade there are some that are long range missiles but they are guided and they all by and large. missing the target they're also mostly being intercepted by the israeli side into this and earlier today here in tel aviv the israelis deployed and i am doing this system for the first time ever everybody does point to the fact that this cannot be a precisely targeted operation you have the number of dead that continues to climb many many of them in fact most of them are civilians and here too we have the number of injured people continuing to increase the foreign ministry spokesperson

did stress the point that the israeli army is targeting only militants responsible for the firing of these rockets but he was hard pressed to answer the question as to why so many civilians are being killed the israeli government will do everything needed targeting terrorists only. to stop the firing of rockets on israel cities but these really schools israeli children and if we will need some ground operation we will consider so there are no children been heard by the idea of only heard only terrorists are targeted now one of the israeli air strikes to target the home of a hamas leader in the jabalya refugee camp which is arguably the most densely populated area on earth and there you have a majority of young people we are hearing figures that as many as fifty people there have been injured many of them children and many of them critical at the same

time the international community is pushing up efforts to try and deal with the situation later on saturday they will be the meeting of the arab league the trim as you know foreign ministry is in gaza to show his support for the hamas government and we're also hearing statements from both feet the u.n. chief thank you moon and others in the international community of course one of the reporting right there should be keeping us all updated on air and online as well so you can just simply follow her twitter stream for the latest. now filmmaker and documentarian harry fear has been since the first bombs fell he says israel has the capability to avoid collateral damage but hasn't stud chosen to attack indiscriminately the streets here is the empty generally it's like it ghost strip of land like a ghost town people are still fearing further violence further damage and people are trying to stop food and fuel as has been going on the last few days since the operation started people here still fear the workers they fear ground and we'll

keep patients off the gaza strip with time and come on those except for and so people are preparing for violence well apparently israel boasts such high quality military equipment but it is able to make accurate talk to us we hear from israelis in the last few years that the drones have such high quality optics they can even see the color of women's head scarves on the ground in gaza at the same time we're seeing dead children including three under the age of two in the last few days we have to ask ourselves why exactly is this happening to me it seems obvious here on the ground that israel is willing to use disproportionate force to reckon slee attack the targets of which wishes to assassinate many of whom had been democratically mandated by the palestinian people. gaza militants have now launched several rockets at tel aviv and jerusalem the first time the cities have come under attack for decades and see what sorrow flounders says it's

a wake up call for the israelis. it's really a game changer and very significant that for the first time hamas or from gaza attacks have come because israel is used to and has for six decades again and again hit the palestinians with impunity when they were totally and entirely defenseless and bombed again and again even during the time that i was there in gaza it's almost a daily occurrence the threat now of a ground invasion for the first time really the palestinians were able to follow fire missiles with a range to tell of the. jews alone or to fire on u.s. supplied israeli planes of course none of this could take place without the support the meetings a briefing beforehand in with washington without u.s. diplomatic military economic support of course are also we are closely following

the escalating conflict on air and online at r.t. dot com that's where we're asking you to get involved or we're asking who is to blame for the ongoing bloodshed let's bring up the numbers for this hour right now so far it's looking like a third of you think it's really oppressors blockading palestinians who are responsible for the conflict now just about the same amount are saying it's prime minister netanyahu boosting his reelection bid for january twenty percent put the blame on the un for not recognizing palestinian statehood and just down to the minority now condemning hamas terrorists attacking from behind shimon shields are still time for you to get involved at r.t. dot com you can cast your vote. this is r.t. paris has announced plans to install

a syrian. from the new opposition group that's the latest show of support from western nations which also want to lift the e.u. arms embargo to openly start sending weapons to syrian rebels plus with the eurozone officially back in recession we report on how in some of the better off countries it's the elderly who are taking the hit that more just ahead for you. if you're passing through russia's to be a region you really can walk on the wild side thousands of kilometers of unspoilt countryside make up an area where it's still possible to live off the land such spectacular scenery makes it a paradise for fisherman and provides a business opportunity for hunters there are defined hunting seasons in russia but lax enforcement means many animals are killed out of the allotted times which can

leave young animals orphaned and unable to survive the heart of just u.s. forest provides a sanctuary for the most famous beast in russia it's home to a group who rescue often bear cubs and raise them when they're old enough to fend for themselves the cubs a target taken to a remote location and released back into the wild but it's not just bears who find a haven here this is wolf island here wolf pups who've been captured by hunters or bought from zoos have a second chance at life and conservationists have a unique opportunity to observe them these walls are all around four months old and they'll stay in this area for up to three years then most will go back to the wild for good just viewing them from the car was an experience in itself but then after a bit of a bumpy ride came an opportunity i just couldn't pass up. this is what i was hoping for when i heard i was coming to a place called wolf island a chance to get close and personal with the locals and it's these guys are going to

act as foster parents for the next generation will come here using the older walls as surrogate parents has already proved a successful technique. every year i place infant wolves with one year old wolf cubs his parental instinct is totally shaped and they take them as their own cubs it's going to continue to take time and money to rehabilitate the wolf's reputation in russia. but the keepers here hope their research and dedication will mean that wolf island remains a place where visitors can truly understand the call of the wild. thanks for joining us here on r.t. today i'm received show in moscow france says it will install an ambassador from the new syrian opposition group the national coalition the move came of talks in

paris between president ally and then the head of the new alliance was the but this is the latest western tactic to remove president bashar al assad the talks in paris focused on the protection of rebel controlled areas aid to refugees and the need for a provisional government certainly in short lobbies for the new coalition could follow france and turkey in recognizing them on monday the use expected to discuss official arms deliveries to the country's rebels militias have been fighting against the syrian army for nearly two years with about one hundred people being killed on a daily basis middle east blog culture believes the opposition movement is in a state of disarray and has no united voice. in syria of course the process has been much slower and the wave of defection that we saw in libya didn't exactly happen in syria and what's happening now in specifically in syria is that people there are kind of the presenting of the syrian uprising are not the people who are on the ground so we started hearing for example support from different rebel groups

aren't mirabelle groups for the new opposition leadership but who knows the extent of that or whether they would be able to exercise political control so what you really have to look at there is the strong divide between need their ship that is outside the country and doesn't have control on the ground and forces on the ground pretty much doing whatever they. i want after all we've ended with is do a separate opposition bodies because this syrian national council still exists alongside the national coalition the new national coalition so it's a recipe for more division and kind of lack of coherence to it for moving the country forward. what you'd always ahead online to find out how the pride of the u.k.'s a nuclear submarine fleet has disappointed high command i rue revealed some of the vessels surprising flaws including that of problems with flooding. across the russian premier dmitri medvedev has promised finland's ex-president rather fluffy

to present another photo of the feline gift already online but check it out on the website. the u.k. government's handling of its bank bailouts has come under fierce criticism after it was claimed the sixty six billion pounds spent to rescue lloyds t.s.b. in the royal bank of scotland may never be recovered and the report from m.p.'s says that british taxpayers have already lost some two billion keeping another financial institution afloat let's run up the numbers for this hour here on r.t. so for three ports. this is all focused around the public accounts committee investigation into the sale of northern rock that was the bank that if you cast your mind a couple of years back was one of the first to get the big banking bailout is estimated that for a northern rope sit tight stay is set to these around two hundred billion but that's not the worst of it because r.v.'s and lloyds bank oh also had

a lot of times payers money funded into these bailouts and the taxpayers could be set to release a staggering sixty six billion pounds on that is very very hard to wrap your head around those figures so we're going to try and compare it really the amount that was put into those bailouts to what we have in the moment spending on slaves to welfare such as pensions education health care and defense these figures coming at a time when everyone here is struggling in a daily we're talking to people who are really struggling to survive in the country in the midst of this very very tough economic times and you kind of got this is a good report very hard hitting report telling us that there was a monumental collective failure that the treasury was unable to pull to respond because they lack the right skills and understanding so it really sucks a little bit of the billion sorry guys we've lost the sixty six billion you know we weren't quite on the job one of the great the warning at the very beginning with

the tax payers alliance and doing now by a campaign manager robert oxley thank you for joining us today these types of stories always make me so angry because you know every day we're covering stories where people are struggling with a living wage in the a chance to pension seen a tax is a rising all the time and then you have this report showing that you know sixty six billion could be lost i mean it's just cheating irresponsible with taxpayers' money this report is a. call to to spoil their woolly word. that we were going to make money out of the banks and that propping up the banks would be you know it would be ok and there was a chorus of people from both sides of the political divide saying you know we need to bail out the barracks were ultimately what's happened is we've lost billions of pounds we have basically allowed politicians to gamble other people's money and lo and behold those politicians have got very good results as is always the case when politicians are spending other people's money it's incredible how often those in

power manage to get every major crisis wrong and i think we're seeing that moment in a rejection of the way that our politics at westminster is out of touch the point here is that with the writing was on the wall whether any lessons will actually be lying of course remains to be thing but taxpayers they think they've absolutely whopping losses at the moment at least a lot of people saying you know we saved the banks he's going to save us. some other global news for you and pretty for the r.t. world update starting with a train that collided with a school bus south of the egyptian capital claiming the lives of at least forty nine children the exact number of fatalities at the moment unclear how one local doctor said that many of the victims were aged between four and six and the action reportedly happened because the railroad crossing wasn't closed while the train sped to work so it already egypt's transport minister has resigned following the crash. security is on high alert in thailand following a terror attack ahead of a planned visit by barack obama on sunday at least one person was killed and many

injured when a motorcycle bomb exploded in the country's volatile south setting five buildings on fire obama is to begin a three nation tour of southeast asia hoping to boost u.s. influence in a region where china is seen to be increasingly assertive and. u.s. congressmen have passed their so-called magnitsky bill but visa restrictions on russian officials that are washington claims have been involved in human rights violations. and was named after the russian lawyers magnitsky who died in police custody three years ago while serving time for alleged tax evasion moscow slammed the bill as fast and promised a deal response washington also voted to lift soviet era trade limitations with russia but author and historian dr gerald horne believes the u.s. is making a step towards a souring of relations. the message that the need to moscow is the. whole russia quickly at that when one door closes another one opens what i mean is

that the human rights situation you're in it's quite terrible and i would hope that the russian duma and the russian authorities would begin to scrutinize carefully the human rights situation right here in their own state where for example that's like one example most many black populations about thirty percent of the population of about fifty percent of the prison population. and they are disproportionately represented on death row those slated for execution by the state authorities for example one not a miniscule bill must go there would pose visa restrictions on those businesses who would seek to do business with russia or involved in violation of equal opportunity laws right here in the united states i mean i think there are number of measures that could take that would be inappropriate for tat are you watching r t still to come for you on the program do you believe in charity. what's the catch there is no cats there's absolutely no cats other than that them probably doesn't want them to

do that because people are very clear that like a good idea to you yet the president takes to the streets of new york to find out what people there think of the new or people project aimed at saving the population from its growing debt. by twenty minutes past the hour moscow time to form a coalition generals acquitted by the un international court on friday have returned home to a hero's welcome from a crowd of thousands of strong and saying go to vienna and a lot and lot of cats were jailed last year for murdering and persecuting so during the bloody breakup of yugoslavia back in ninety five they deny the charges saying that they couldn't stop their troops from committing atrocities in the story had an abortion which believes the decision to set them free falls into a long since established pattern from the us. that the court has no credibility to start with and it shouldn't have had any credibility for years the fact that people are protesting the verdict now as

a miscarriage of justice is actually lending the court credibility how would you why would you be offended by a decision. that is made perfectly in line with what the courts because i court mandate which is to blame the serbs for everything that the court tribunals did exactly what it was supposed to do we made a show trial it made a show over. and overturn a show verdict when its usefulness wasn't the end it was greenlit to join the e.u. after deferred it now all of a sudden the verdicts are longer necessary these guys can go scot free and everything is just fine and dandy in killing serbs is not a crime in fact almost a requirement to join civilized society define it these days. despite the looming economic trouble in the eurozone one of its biggest economies that of france has always been praised as the promised land for the retired however with a single currency zone hit with a second recession things are changing fast. when to invest.

when you look at the elderly people in france you'd never think they could be in trouble there has been a common belief that france is one of the best countries in the world for pensioners and that they are very well cared for by the state but with the financial crisis raging across the european union and france being no exception to that more and more of the retired are finding it harder to make ends meet here worked as an engineer for over four decades having retired he says he sometimes cannot afford to buy food with you spend. six. months of it. leave there is a six year old for a lot of trouble. or. most of the people say you have to all. you have to or to all sixty years old how can you survive in circumstances like piers is unclear but hundreds of thousands of pension is across the country are in the same boat say the chairman of

a large charity which is trying to help. the number of seniors turning to us for help has increased considerably in order regions and rents it used to be in the nori but now all regions are of young people and children used to help but now with the greatest hitting the young seniors when we saw them recently. but no these struggling people are in for another blow starting next year the pensions of over ten million french will be taxed says the minister for the elderly this will amount to zero point fifteen percent of monthly payments and the new government believes this will generate three hundred fifty million euros annually for the social security fund but economists believe it's pointless for the government trying to do now is reach by all means the three percent deficit threshold that was promised to brussels and they're trying to find like every single penny it's the. obvious the

countries don't have a say or do harm to the pensioners and to their spending power will be just really bad for consumption in france it will not be a perfect solution for. creating french growth and agrees because in his case every cent counts it may be less than one percent a few spend deducted each month but it's still threatens to take food from his mouth alexy rush of ski reporting from paris and france. is coming to life from moscow occupy wall street might have finally found a way to save america's troubled one percent. brainchild will get rid of american citizens debts resident hit the streets of new york to find out of people believe that. started by the people behind the occupy wall street rolling jubilee is a project that is by debt just like a collection agency work but instead of collecting their absolving that debt in an

effort to liberate america from the chains of debt if this indeed is or a way to let black off the hook from responsibility this week let's talk about that depends on where the funds are coming from crowd so i asked crowd sourced yeah crowdsourcing is great if they can clear people's dead who need it then i think that the. good thing to do are you and dad. i take that as a yes not a lot but i do know of it well if you're below i'm not sure that they won't go right back in again so i think people need to responsible for their own actions or they're going to do. i still understand what they're about to drive me crazy occupy wall street does well they've destroyed a whole bunch of public property with their movie they've paid for that why don't they pay for that the taxpayers have to pick up what's the catch there is no catch there's absolutely no catch other than the system probably doesn't want them to do this because then people are free and clear that like

a good idea to you. but i'm not going to buy my debt from the u.k. i think i know someone who went to africa to live for a while and they were boarded every day with ever ties and so what they don't have and they said they never felt so wealthy or well to do as it living in africa as they weren't every day you know with what they didn't have yeah it would be nice if companies took a little bit of the responsibility for their advertising and marketing and also for the credit card companies who hand out cards that may have people that can't pay for it to kids they give them to kids in college that's a big problem yeah it's unethical you know it is we're just spending. nine eleven what what do they say don't stop shopping. because you know we've got to keep this big machine rolling but it's is this going to just collapse in on itself anyways i mean can we just continue to buy and buy and buy forever and without ever saving anything so what's going to be the massive change at all over i mean i think it's

an economic rollover i think we're seeing it now we've got economic crisis in every country around the world whether or not you think rolling to billy's sounds like a good idea the bottom line is their only mission is to help the common good not wall street profits which to me is always a movement to get behind. i did just a moment to lauren lyster on capital account. world do the. science technology innovation all the news developments from around russia we've got the future of coverage.

download the official r.t. application so far choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from arts l.t.v. is not required to watch artsy all you need is your mobile device to watch r.t. any time. you have a vote of war lords walk a few minutes we have a lot of illegal call groups of the causes of the sluices also abuse in the home or

right enough to just buy a lot it was like twelve men yet that marriage wasn't forced marriage was with money when i was continuous so you can liberate other women and you certainly can't do it through the barrel of a gun only effective social changes can be the afghans themselves. afghan men and women we believe i'm going to stun him not to across. the part of the patient it's chemical position and construction but it's the people in the obama administration talking about how much they care about the women of afghanistan it's not true they don't care about the women of afghanistan. good afternoon welcome to capital i cound i'm lauren lester here in wash.